I'm wondering if anyone has any advice about the things I need to bear in mind when lifting carpet leaving the boards bare.

Long story short a combination of cream carpet in a room leading to the garden and seemingly incontinent animals has lead to our lounge having all the qualities of a crack den. We had planned to lay wood flooring but the recent recession has scuppered that idea and we decided that just having bare boards couldn't be any worse than it is at the moment.

The boards are a lot closer together than I thought they would be which is positive. There are a couple of nails that I need to tap in and I might need to lightly sand it and varnish/stain it but I don't know if there are any larger things (like insulation etc.) that I need to be aware of.

Any hints would be appreciated.

Hi, DrB.

I guess that you are going to chuck the old carpet?
If not, let us know ....

Aye, tap in old nails and sand, but if you are going to varnish - and you really should - 4 coats of good stuff is minimal, imo. Otherwise areas of high tread will wear out, the wood will get dirty and stain and it'll look a mess in no time.

A proper job now will be easy to wipe clean later, last years and save pounds and hours of getting it right/new carpet later.

If you have a cellar below then you really should seal all gaps with a wood filler - this must be able to expand/retract with the wood or it'll crack in no time.
If you don't, and the cellar is unheated, it'll cost a small fortune in heat-loss and be unpleasant to be in the room when the wind howls.

Hope that's some little help,
Me.

And think about whether you want a shiny finish on the wood

Did my lounge a few years back. the boards were in good nick, but at some point they'd been painted so I needed to sand them back pretty heavily. If you do need to sand, don't use an orbital sander as you'll get circular marking on the wood - best to hire a floor sander but if it's not too bad you could maybe get away with a normal belt sander - depends how big the room is and how dirty the boards are. IMO worth doing a good job first time. Stick some decent flooring grade varnish down as well. Even that won't stop it getting scratched up if you're dragging furniture around to hoover, so get some felt pads for the legs of any heavy furniture items that you're going to be moving around reasonably regularly. I didn't need to seal the gaps - they weren't that big and we've not got a cellar, just a suspended wooden floor. I did need to replace all the skirting though as it had been put in after the carpet and there were big gaps all along the bottom. Other things to think about are cable runs (no carpet to hide cables under) - you can run them behind skirting if you're replacing that or I've got some running under the floor (PITA to do as I had to take a few boards up and crawl under the floor, but worth it).

Oh and ban high heels from the room. They'll make little pock marks all over the wood (especially with your weight on 'em )

I thought we'd chuck it once I'm satisfied the new floor 'works'. What do you mean "let us know"?Thanks for the confirmation. I'm a really lazy DIYer but this option should be a lot cheaper than reflooring. I can just see me lifting the carpet and leaving it at that I wish! No cellars here - does it matter in terms of the concrete floor underneath though (in terms of the cold)?Yeah, I don't want to make the room look too 'old' as the furniture is modern. I'm planning on experimenting on a small area to find the varnish I like.Thanks for the tips. The boards look pretty clean but there are strips of tape to stick the insulating mat down which I'd need to remove.Yeah, this is an issue with us. I really don't want to get into removing skirting and wouldn't have a clue how to do it. Two questions: does it NEED doing and how hard is it to do?As far as I know there are no cables etc. but this is one of the things that concerns me. The little corner of the room we've checked is fine but when I've cleared the room of furniture and lifted the whole lot I'm worried about nasty surprises (like mis-sized boards, gappiness etc.). My theory was that we just paint the carpet but my wife didn't like that idea

I could do with a new carpet .....

No ..... I just meant that if so, and it was tacked down, you need to be careful how you take it up/roll it/and such, but if you are chucking, no problem.

Btw, I used to keep a 1m x 1 1/2m piece of carpet in the boot of my car for standing on when getting in and out of wellies/waders when fishing, but it covers a multitude of uses - putting cases/bags on if the ground is dirty or for kneeling on if you have to change a tyre, etc. Takes up minimal space if laid flat in the back.

Good advice from Unc. about the type of sander and varnish. Have a look online at DIY sites for even more info.

Honest, mate, make a proper job of it now and you won't regret it later.

And make sure you get it finished before Xmas Eve

re cables I just meant if you want to run speaker / surround sound cables through the room you can't just stick em under the carpet if you ain't got a carpet.

re skirting - only needs doing when the missus says she hates the gap around the floor (and the woodlice and spiders that hide in it ). Depends how bad it looks. Can be tricky if it's been 'no-nailed' on as you'll have to jemmy it off, which might take some of the plaster with it. Easyish to fit new stuff, but you have to take your time over mitring the corners and if it's nailed into wooden wedges you'll probably have to make some new wedges (or just no-nail it I guess). If you've got a bay window then it gets trickier.

When you take the old carpet up, there will almost certainly be some crap bits where the plumber's cut through the boards to get at the pipework, so you may well have to fit a few new pieces. Can usually get them pretty much the right colour with a few small pots of stain and a bit of patience. Just watch the width and depth of any new boards. If the house is oldish then the new boards may be too wide. You'll need to fins a friendly woodyard with a ripsaw to cut it down.

You mentioned the concrete floor - if they're proper floorboards I doubt they'll be stuck straight onto concrete - they'll probably be suspended on brick walls under the floor level, with a crawl space underneath. There will be a few draughts, as the crawl space has to be ventilated to stop rot, but shouldn't be too bad if the gaps in the boards are pretty tight.

Thanks for all of the ideas/guidance guys. I've been putting this off for ages but I think I'll be busy at the weekend now (not least because my wife is off work tomorrow and I know what happens when she gets bored!).

I'll give it a go without lowering the skirting especially as we'll hopefully get proper stuff when we can afford it. I might even try to avoid varnishing it for a while...

Hire shop sanders can be quite shocking, be careful. Best results are to hire from specialists.

Skirting gap can be fixed by fixing a thin piece of mdf to the face of the existing skirting, caulk the top of the new piece of mdf to fill thin gap and paint - see my drawing. http://www.twitpic.com/nfwkr

If you have draughty floorboards there are plenty of tricks to solve this problem, from specialist products to thin strips of wood.

Not too sure DrB is upto your standard

No, you're probably right...you free at the weekend Fuzzy?

The other pics are quite impressive, don't you think?

ha ha.

Funnily enough I am - going to Devon for the weekend to sample beers

blahblah - was quite pleased with that one, was nice to get something a bit challenging. Recent work has been a tad tedious.

Got to agree... I'm well impressed with those pics fuzzy.

We have beer in Southampton too...

I think I'll probably skip the inlaying thing and stick to ripping up the old carpet and then deflect by blaming the government for my current financial trauma rather than bothering to do anything else

on a serious note DrB make sure no nails go through the gas pipes or anything important like that.

do i know anyone who has done it - oh yes and her house and next doors had to be evacuated so had her as a guest for a while (and no she was just a friend around the same age before you ask )

andy

Did someone call me?

You're too late now

Thanks for the reminder though - cheers to everyone for the advice above. We pulled up the carpets a while back and haven't looked back. We haven't done any filling or sanding but it looks far better than I'd hoped. Turns out the guy that laid it also left lots of handy notes about which plank could be lifted and where the external power points were located